SARS-CoV-2 infection Archives - Dr Amin Azhari - دکتر امین اظهری

Problems in thinking and attention linked to COVID-19 infection

Evidence of cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19 has been discovered in a new study of over 80,000 individuals.

The research found that those with more severe COVID-19 symptoms scored lower on an online series of tests, with performance on reasoning and problem-solving tasks being most affected. Further analysis of the data indicated that those who received mechanical ventilation to help them breathe whilst in hospital had the greatest impairment on cognitive tasks.

Out of the 81,337 who provided complete data, 12,689 people suspected they had COVID-19. Participants reported a range of severity of illness, with many experiencing respiratory symptoms whilst still being able to stay at home (3,559 participants). Nearly 200 were hospitalised (192 participants) and about a quarter of these (44 participants) required mechanical ventilation.

The time since illness onset was around 1-6 months, meaning the study could not draw any definitive conclusions about whether these effects on cognition were long-lasting.

Published in the journal EClinicalMedicine, the research was a collaboration between King’s College London, Imperial College London and Cambridge University.

Release date: 11 August 2021
Source: King’s College London

Covid-19

PCR of Gargle Lavage Samples as Effective as Nasopharyngeal Swabs to Identify SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Twenty-six subjects from a cohort of 80 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 via nasopharyngeal swab, and all 26 tested positive using gargle lavage (mouthwash), according to new research published in Microbiology Spectrum, the new open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. That’s good news, because nasopharyngeal swabbing, currently the gold standard for collecting samples for COVID testing, has a low rate of acceptance due to the discomfort of having a nasal passage swabbed .The detection method for testing samples used in this study is the highly sensitive real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Our results show that in all cases, where people were positively tested by the gold standard nasal swabbing, one could also detect the virus in gargle lavage by the same RT-PCR method.

Release date: 21 July 2021
Source: American Society for Microbiology

Public Health, Public Health, Public Health

COVID-19 antibodies persist at least nine months after infection

Testing of an entire Italian town shows antibody levels remain high nine months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic.

Researchers from the University of Padua and Imperial College London tested more than 85 percent of the 3,000 residents of Vo’, Italy, in February/March 2020 for infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and tested them again in May and November 2020 for antibodies against the virus.

The team found that 98.8 percent of people infected in February/March showed detectable levels of antibodies in November, and there was no difference between people who had suffered symptoms of COVID-19 and those that had been symptom-free. The results are published in Nature Communications.

Release date: 19 July 2021
Source: Imperial College London

Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19

Common Medication Used to Reduce Cholesterol Levels May Reduce COVID-19 Severity

Using anonymized medical records from a national registry, UC San Diego researchers confirm earlier findings that statins may substantially minimize adverse outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a new study from University of California San Diego School of Medicine, researchers have confirmed that patients taking statin medications had a 41 percent lower risk of in-hospital death from COVID-19. The findings were published in PLOS ONE and expand upon prior research conducted at UC San Diego Health in 2020.

Statins are commonly used to reduce blood cholesterol levels by blocking liver enzymes responsible for making cholesterol. They are widely prescribed: The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 93 percent of patients who use a cholesterol-lowering drug use a statin.

Release date: 25 July 2021
Source: University of California – San Diego

Tag Archive for: SARS-CoV-2 infection